Thread: Plugger and The Camel

Rod and Homestar,

Forewarned is forearmed - and thanks guys for chiming in here.

I will order a new one this week and install it without delay.
I underestimated the abuse this sleeve must be under.

Rod the ball is free and unencumbered, albeit a bit loose in the cups that hold it but seemed to be OK once mounted.

Cheers and thanks,
Tricky and Plugger

Hi Everyone,

Continuing on from our story with regards to the transfer case, it has new been received in the UK by Ashcrofts and they are working on it as I write this.
Its quite unbelievable, I sent the case on the Friday from our local Burpengary Auspost branch and it arrived in Coventry by the Thursday!
I cant get parcels up from Sydney in that time!!

Anyway some other stuff has been going on in the background, albeit slowly. I had my Carpel Tunnel Decompression surgery late last month so I am a bit incapacitated for a while and things have slowed down dramatically. I am not sure whether we will hit our 01 July completion date now but hey, its not a race right? The left hand is coming along OK, but it is quite painful at times and its nowhere near strong enough to grasp things yet, so work is dependent on Plugger in between school and footy. I have income protection insurance but they are yet to approve the claim!
20170329_072420.jpg

On the Camel front we have done some other fun things. In the past I have owned a few different 4WD's including the last two which were Nissan Patrol GU-three and a GU-five - both of which were in my opinion rubbish as the 3.0litre turbo diesel in them couldn't pull a boy scout off your grandma!! Another rubbish feature of the Patrol's was that reversing lights on them were virtually non-existent - one small 5w bulb on the drivers side only - thank you Nissan! To this end I was intent on Camel not suffering from the same malady! The PTO portal in the rear crossmember seemed like an ideal way to protect a reversing light and also not impede the beam. So I hunted around for a LED floodlight of the same diameter and found one on eBay (I actually bought four of them as Plugger can have one mounted on a stalk on the rear Swingaway Spare Wheel carrier as a task specific floodlight. The other two might go on his winchbar!!)!
20170107_112613.jpg

As you can see from the above photo it comes with a small but stylish little weather hood which I ground off so it would sit flat and flush against the inside of the rear crossmember
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I then drilled and inserted two 8mm nutserts into the rear crossmember and used some 8mm stainless steel domed Allen bolts as fasteners.
20170114_110523.jpg

And its nice and protected back there with an uninterrupted beam out the back!
20170114_110535.jpg

We have also been on the hunt for some time for a set of Alpine windows for Camel's hardtop - it didn't come with any and I wondered if having them as standard was a factory option. anyone care to have a comment on this? Anyway, as you can see from the hardtop that we got for $150 (along with a bonnet, fender and windscreen assembly) ours didn't come with any.
20160222_075158.jpg

We have been trying to find some for the last six months and looked everywhere - enquiring as far afield as a Land Rover wrecker in Tennant Creek with no luck. It seems they were a s rare as rocking horse kaka so I was resigned to sending over to the UK for some reproduction ones which were the 4mm thick ones. But persistence pays off. I constantly look on Gumtree and eBay for parts for the Landie and by pure luck I stumbled upon a guy selling an old S2A in Tasmania of all places. He also mentioned that he had some parts. I took a chance and contacted him and yes, he had two sets in hand - one 5mm and one 4mm thickness. For the princely sum of $100 including postage I grabbed the 5mm set and they arrived yesterday looking like new - so thanks David!!
20170420_105314.jpg

So now I need to order the rubbers - and make sure I get the 5mm ones!! Hopefully with a bit of careful installation Camel will now look more like this - a light and airy cabin space that is kinda "all Land Rover" (and the bonus is that I wont have to repair the dent in the hardtop which is in the exact same position as the window)...
s-l1600 (2).jpg

Anyway, that's all for today. Working on the bulkhead repairs now until the transfer case comes back from Ashcrofts with the highway gears installed and then we can rebuild the T/case and mate it up to the engine and install that and do a first start of the 202 after the rebuild. Exciting times!!

Cheers and thanks,
Tricky and Plugger

Hi Gang,

The wrist is coming along just fine and I have a fair bit of strength back in the hand now. Nowhere near like it was pre-op but good enough to let me tackle a few things in the shop. Thanks for all your well-wishes! Luckily Plugger was on hand to do most of the heavy lifting!

Well the transfer case arrived back from Ashcroft last week and I thought it was a pretty quick turnaround considering it had to travel across the other side of the world. The workmanship done by Ashcrofts was exceptional and I am glad I decided to get them to do it rather than try and machine the casing myself. The service from this UK Company was nothing short of brilliant, and I would highly recommend them to anyone looking to get the highway gears installed in their Series Landy.

This is how the case turned up. All the machining done and three sets of cogs - mainshaft gear, intermediate and high range gear. Interestingly, they are all made in Italy and seem to be of a very high quality!
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And here you can see how the aperture for the intermediate shaft has been offset machined to allow for the larger diameter gearsets to increase the gearbox final drive ratio
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Next was basically putting it all back together. The box from Ashcrofts even contained a complete set of gearbox and transfer-case gaskets. I had to reassemble the front drive to the transfer case twice because I forgot to install the hi/lo ratio yoke (hmmm, annoyed at myself for such an obvious error!!). And here it is all reassembled - all nice and new and shiny!
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Well it was about 6pm when I finally got it all back together. Now all I need to do is get a new clutch plate for it and we can marry it up to the reconditioned engine. I will need to replace the gearbox and engine mounts as well as they have gone all hard and compressed. Then it will be a test fire for the engine! The park brake assembly is ready to go back on I just need to replace the rubber dust cover. Once this is all done its another major milestone completed...
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Well that's about it until next week. Looking forward to posting the next installment.

Cheers and thanks,
Plugger and Tricky

Originally Posted by Archangel007

Hi Everyone,

We have also been on the hunt for some time for a set of Alpine windows for Camel's hardtop - it didn't come with any and I wondered if having them as standard was a factory option. anyone care to have a comment on this? Anyway, as you can see from the hardtop that we got for $150 (along with a bonnet, fender and windscreen assembly) ours didn't come with any.
20160222_075158.jpg

We have been trying to find some for the last six months and looked everywhere - enquiring as far afield as a Land Rover wrecker in Tennant Creek with no luck. It seems they were a s rare as rocking horse kaka so I was resigned to sending over to the UK for some reproduction ones which were the 4mm thick ones. But persistence pays off. I constantly look on Gumtree and eBay for parts for the Landie and by pure luck I stumbled upon a guy selling an old S2A in Tasmania of all places. He also mentioned that he had some parts. I took a chance and contacted him and yes, he had two sets in hand - one 5mm and one 4mm thickness. For the princely sum of $100 including postage I grabbed the 5mm set and they arrived yesterday looking like new - so thanks David!!
20170420_105314.jpg

So now I need to order the rubbers - and make sure I get the 5mm ones!! Hopefully with a bit of careful installation Camel will now look more like this - a light and airy cabin space that is kinda "all Land Rover" (and the bonus is that I wont have to repair the dent in the hardtop which is in the exact same position as the window)...
s-l1600 (2).jpg

Anyway, that's all for today. Working on the bulkhead repairs now until the transfer case comes back from Ashcrofts with the highway gears installed and then we can rebuild the T/case and mate it up to the engine and install that and do a first start of the 202 after the rebuild. Exciting times!!

Cheers and thanks,
Tricky and Plugger

The alpine windows were only fitted to station wagons as standard and "real" 88 station wagons, as opposed to optioned up hardtops are quite rare in Australia. By the time people were starting to buy new Landrovers for personal use, as opposed to buying second hand "work" vehicles, the preference has shifted strongly to lwb ones. As an indication, no nineties were sold in Australia until after about 2000, and then they were only occasionally available until the last few years of production.

Thanks John for the info!!

Seeing as the Camel is not by anyone's measure 'standard', I think the windows will suit and get some more light into the back.

I think he will look very cool with the new glass!!

Cheers,
Andrew

I was not being critical, just explaining why they are so hard to find!

Originally Posted by JDNSW

I was not being critical, just explaining why they are so hard to find!

No offence taken whatsoever!! It seems funny though as the alpine windows are the Land Rover trademark "look" so you think they would have been standard across the board??

Cheers,
Andrew

Perhaps shows how late you came to the show!

The alpine windows were introduced for the 107 Series 1 wagon to make them less claustrophobic for the high set rear seat passengers, but were restricted to wagons only (albeit at available as optional extras for at least some of the time on other hardtops) until the end of Series production, and for that matter until the end of Defender production. Remember that up until at least the 1980s, most Landrovers sold didn't even have a hardtop.

They were carried over from the Series/90/110 station wagons to the Discovery, which is where they became a "trademark look". This was less than thirty years ago, more than forty years after production of Landrovers started.